Honored Matres

See also Honored Matres ghelp files.

The Honored Matres are an army of savage female warriors, formed by Fish Speakers and Bene Gesserits in the Scattering. They embody the best of both, their viciousness matched only by the most ferocious of Fish Speakers, their control over their bodies surpassed only by the most skilled of Reverend Mothers. They are known for their nearly supernatural speed and reflexes, and their superior physical, as well as mental conditioning. They are masters of martial arts, some Matres specializing in charging their opponents headon, and some more skilled at using their enemies' power against them. Finally, in addition to their combat prowess the Honored Matres possess unique skills of manipulation and seduction, the likes of which even the Bene Gesserits can barely comprehend.

Upon the death of the God Emperor Leto Atreides, the empire of humanity fragmented in a cataclysmic event known to those who have come since as the Scattering.

Out of the Scattering came an order of women rumored to be descended from fragments of the Bene Gesserit and the Fish Speakers. These women, known as the Honored Matres, who were far separated from the planet Arrakis, were not under the addictive grip of the spice melange. Instead, these women had developed an adrenaline-based substitute, which assisted in the development of heightened reflexes. It also caused their eyes to develop orange flecks if they were angered.

On top of this stimulant, the Honored Matres were able to develop decentralized nervous systems. This allowed each of their limbs to develop nerve ganglia and local reflexes. An Honored Matre could react to an attack without signals from the brain, making their reflexes and combat speed unparalleled by anything in history.

In addition to their combat abilities, the Honored Matres developed their skills in sexual seduction and enslavement. These women are known for their extreme violence and rule their vast empire through brute force and intimidation. Their order is one of chaos, and murdering and assassinating for status or position is commonplace.

There are no guild levels in this guild. Instead, guild “size” is based entirely on trainable guild skills. There are 56 such skills, grouped into several “skill trees.”

This guild is heavily based on intensity. All of your damage and defense will scale up as your intensity increases. With that said, you will feel very weak and vulnerable when your intensity is low. When you hit 70% intensity, you will gain stat bonuses (based on form) as well as the chance to soften unblocked incoming hits occasionally. Your intensity increases every time an enemy tries to hit you or you try to hit an enemy.

The most important skills form the core of the “Sabda” tree; these skills will improve your character in nearly every way and are the benchmark for guild progress. The core Sabda skills are, in order:

Sabda →Prana-Bindu →Condito-Corpus →Condito-Mentis →Condito-Claritus

The skills in the “Lore” tree primarily deal with various healing and regenerative abilities.

Of particular note are the skills wrap, Relaxed, and imbibe.

The skills in the manipulation tree allow you to dominate weaker minds and turn your opponents against each other.

Examples of such skills are enrage, entice, and enslave.

Honored Matres have specialized combat modes called “forms.” Each form has its respective skill tree.

The basic forms are Resheph and Flurry, while advanced Matres have access to the Relaxed and Katahzirui forms.

See also: Skills

To join the guild, take a shuttle to Wallach, go north, enter, and join. Your character must be female to join. A doctor on Caladan will take care of any “little problems” you may have if that is stopping you from joining.

The “ghelp” command gives an index of help files. “ghelp guide” and “ghelp guide 2” are excellent starting points.

Whenever you kill anything, you will want to analyze corpse. This both gives you more guild experience and improves your fighting ability against that creature type for future combat.

I (Kosmos) highly recommend fighting in the flurry form until you improve your weapon and guild skills. It is very difficult to kill things in resheph form at level 1. Raising the flurry skills to 2 opens up the knife hand ability, which will boost your damage output and ability to earn guild experience. I consider this well worth doing even if you ultimately decide not to use the flurry form.

Note - I started in Resheph form and had no trouble whatsoever earning a steady amount of gxp right from the moment I joined. It's distinctly possible that Flurry is superior at low glvls, but if you prefer to run Resheph, know that you will still do fine. - Kerath/Lostara

• Combat Forms
• Skills List
• Skill Training
• Guild Experience
• Guild Score Cards: guildscore, body, and gskills.
• Nervature
• Intensity
• Soostones
• Defense Details

If you have any questions, put them here to get them answered!

Q1: What should I train first?
A: You can't go wrong with training sabda. Think of sabda as the rough equivalent of your guild level. This skill will help everything you do and unlock other skills as well. Training one or both forms is useful as well, but you won't get the full benefits unless you are also training sabda. Power and reflexes, once you unlock them, are both cheap to train and very useful. Try to maintain some sort of balance between sabda, a form, and the other core skills as you get them.
As you advance you will find that we get very little hp initially. You can improve this by training Lore to 5 and then improving the health skill. Health increases the hp per point of con we get, along with other effects. Like most of the skills unlocked by improving lore, it doesn't really help us kill better, so only raise it as high as you need it. Focus is the exception to this rule; focus defense rocks.

Q2: What should I do about stats/MUD-skills?
Your most important stat, by far, is QUI. This will give you more attacks per round, and add damage to your guild abilities and counter attacks. Matres, overall, scale with QUI. With that said, the roll defense is probably the best, since it's based on QUI. As far as mud skills, Hand to Hand weapon skill is very important. Again, guild attacks and counters will be based on Hand to Hand skill.

Q3: Gexp is sloooooow. What can I do to earn more?
A: Gaining levels, even without stats, will boost your gexp income. Getting stats as well will, of course, get more. You should also try fighting larger mobs, or multiple smaller mobs. Gexp will also improve as you advance Sabda-tree skills and your form.

Q4: My fatigue/stress are out of control! What can I do?
A: Try to improve various Lore skills such as Health and Relaxation. Eventually you will want to train Lore to 80 and begin using Imbibe to manage stress and fatigue.